Boris on Webcameron

The long awaited and requested first podcast featuring Boris is available on Webcameron. The above link will take you to a Webcameron page where you can either subscribe to the Podcast or just view it. You can also access the podcast options at the bottom of their homepage.

oh come on guys… this is more of “Dave’s” youth-wizardry! iTunes is pretty much the universal standard for podcasts. For those not hip-enough to own a Mac yet (the future of computing, I firmly believe), they even make it for Windows (a frankly awful operating system…) Also if you’re running less than Windows 2000 then you’re nearly 7 years out of date, which in computing terms puts you somewhere around the Cretaceous Period.

I’m still recovering from when my hebrew tutor (a dominican monk…) took out his iPod nano, put it in an Apple speaker-dock, and played us the mp3 of a rabbi reciting the Bible! If a monk can do it, so can all of us…

As for the podcast, super stuff Boris… That enigmatically large single piece of blank paper will be the highlight of many a thought over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you Donal and no, iTunes isn’t the universal standard for podcasts. Podcasts have been going for several years now, long prior to the advent of i-anything, and proprietary players are the way of the past (anybody remember Realplayer? Exactly). Besides, iTunes have some nasty DRM issues.

MP3 and MP4 are bog-standard file formats that are robust and non-proprietary, ie they will play on anything. So that fact that an iPod will play an MP3 isn’t dazzling to me: my phone will play MP3’s and, in fact, plays an MP3 of London Calling every time someone phones me (unless they have an unlisted number, when it plays Rocking the Casbah).

Using iTunes to deliver a political podcast is a bit like taking a limo from your front door to your sidewalk; utterly unneccessary, fashion-victimish, and excruciatingly bourgeois.

If David Cameron is going to use that proprietary and expensive technology to deliver his message it is abundantly clear that he may want to hug hoodies, but he certainly doesn’t want to empower them!

“Using iTunes to deliver a political podcast is a bit like taking a limo from your front door to your sidewalk; utterly unneccessary, fashion-victimish, and excruciatingly bourgeois.”

You mean there are people who use other things from iTunes? C’mon, its by far the one most people use, and the software is free, therefore anyone could use it. Plus most hoodies have iPods, remember, they nicked ’em off the rest of us.

Brilliant vodcast, Boris! What a relief to learn that one of our politicians is a fellow hoarder of fossilised birthday cake. Cunning admission that, now you’ve confessed the dead tree press can never get you for that one. Get lost, Angel Cakes Anonymous. You’ll never take us alive, cake boiling coppers, we’re having our cake and not eating it.

I had to go all around the ihouses to download a free thingy to see the podcast though. Please make your next one a bit more accessible for cake hoarding ioiks like me.

The Dutch are ripping out traffic lights and street signs to create a free-flowing roundabout where drivers, cyclists and pedestrians co-exist happily. It has been a thumping success: Casualties eliminated and traffic jams consigned to history in the seven years since it was introduced.

I see this as a powerful metaphor for life in Britain today. We once led the world with this kind of radical engineering – think Brunel, Telford, Barnes Wallis – but sadly no longer. We leave it to the Dutch, a nation still capable of independence of thought.

Schemes like this are unimaginable in a country where local councils think they have to kit out every road junction like Checkpoint Charlie or get sued for “negligence” should an accident occur. Of course they prefer it this way; what else would Adrian, Bill and Norman – not to mention the hundreds of road-diggers, sign writers and traffic wardens – do of a day?

I have often thought of NuLab’s policies in terms of traffic lights and roundabouts. Red, amber, green. Command, control, delay, frustrate, penalise. That’s their way. A roundabout is self-regulating and, as the Dutch have shown, the more responsibility you hand back to the user, the more he exercises sensible judgement.

In a village near us, a noisy group of urban arrivists campaigned for more “sayftee mejures” to protect their poppets when crossing the road, even though there had been no serious accidents in living memory. The result (helped by the council having surplus end-of-year budget to mop up)… chicanes, elbows, bollards and a forest of 42, yes FORTY TWO, signs appearing on a single stretch of road with just one junction. And, would you believe, all the bollards and islands now prevent the school bus from turning into the road where the primary school is located so it has to drop children on the main road rather than at the school gates! Sheer bloody madness. How I would love to see the face of Hans Monderman, the Dutch engineer who pioneered their clutter-free roundabouts.

Resourcefulness has been slowly but surely erased from the English dictionary. The unending stream of regulations and controls forced upon us has changed the British from a nation of bold thinkers to a sad collection of victims and wimps, terrified of doing anything out of the ordinary.

When Dave, Boris and co get back in the hot seat (please, please) they MUST apply their considerable intellects to this depressing trend as a matter of utmost priority. A small start would be to place much more emphasis on the “stupidity factor” when courts adjudicate on damages. People should be held more responsible for their own actions. The law should make it clear to everyone that accidents do happen (Latin: Accidit “It happens”) but are less likely to happen if they were more careful.

Beyond that I leave it to them because I’m still suffering from flu. A flu victim, no less.

What’s this ITV are saying about Boris going on Celebrity Big Brother?

That’s got to be a wind-up surely. If it’s true, my advice is ‘don’t do it’. As much as I’d like to see it happen, that show is for freaks and has-beens. They might make you wear a pink leotard and pretend to be David Hasselhof’s pet cat, and thats just for starters.

You’ll probably be locked in for weeks on end with various neurotic ex-pop-tartlets, washed out actors and freaky transexuals whilst they go though the last throws of cold-turkey.

Time was, in Britain, when pretty much the only signs on the roads were found at junctions, pointing to nearby towns or villages.

Now there is a veritable forest of the darn things, telling you how to drive. They are also frequently interestingly contradictory: my current favourite is an End Of Speed Limit sign, about 20 yards before a Give Way sign just round the corner. I wonder how many people see the first sign, put their foot down, only to have to slam on the brakes moments later.

And of course, the more you spend your time trying to decipher road signs, the less time you keep your eyes on the road in front of you – which is my old-fashioned way of driving. I sometimes wonder how many accidents are caused by road signs.

Someone told me a couple of years ago that it would have cost 2000 quid for them to put up a small road sign directing visitors to their hotel. If so, I reckon large motorway signs must be about 100,000 quid each. I dread to think how much has been spent across the entire country. Probably enough to build and staff a few dozen first rate hospitals.

Totally off topic, but has anybody had heard of what has happened in Poland. A young teenager killed herself after being stripped naked in front of her classmates while the boys sexually abused in front of the rest of the class while one of the boys filmed it for twenty mins. Not one classmate really helped her or went for a teacher. The boys are probably going to get away with it because of their age. It has been all over the european press this week about how bad british teenagers are, yet this has recieved virtually no attention outside of poland, even though these boys will probably scarper over here first chance they get now they are hate figures in Poland. I refuse to believe our teenagers are this bad.

And yes you’re right, they’ll be here shortly, and we won’t know their faces and any nervousness on our part will be seen as hysterical racism.

I was a youth leader and was involved in two groups – one populated by white middle class children and one inner city group, predominantly pakistani/ethnic ‘minority’. I was amazed and impressed by the white middle class children (I encountered 2nd), they were polite, hard working and enjoyed learning. The inner city experience can be summed up with one example; I asked the group what essential item they would take with them when walking up a mountain, the only unprompted answer was ‘a weapon’.

Dangerous talk, Jaq. It would be easy to accuse you of stereotyping but no-one should dismiss your own experiences. The politically correct imperative has been to ridicule evidence like this, which is partly why we find ourselves in our present mess.

How we recover from it, heaven only knows. There are no quick fixes. I would start by revising the slogan we hear so often: Boris for PM.

As for that Poland comment k, that is indeed horrific. I don’t know if we are lacking things like that here, after all the Moors murders did happen here, although they were a bit different and took place a good while ago. I think the thing that really appals us these days is the fact that it’s children/teenagers involved in this. Obviously we expect some evil from a few adults, but somehow it is much worse when we hear of such cruelty in children. I remember hearing about the James Bulger killing and somehow it did feel much worse than the same thing would have done if committed by adults.

PaulD – yes I realise I was not making my meaning clear but was distracted and now am again… v.quickly then – I wanted to draw attention to the social situation these poles would probably end up in; children from 11 to 14 already living in a climate of fear and tension where they think the most important thing they can have if alone in this country is a weapon, not a map. THAT makes my heart bleed and to consider we have no control over our borders and connot prevent the monsters k mentioned from living among us, adding to the problem, makes me very fearful, and very very sad.

I think it highlights that this “yob culture” is a Europewide problem not just a British problem. Although saying this, the only reason this case got so much attention in Poland was because of the poor girls death, so i am sure it happens here too. I have heard of two cases in the past year (one this week) where British teenagers have filmed themselves torturing people and been given really light punishments.
I really wish crime would be given a lot more attention by politicians (at least in the popular press). It is probably, in my opinion, the issue most like to sway floating voters and non-voters, much more so than the environment.

k, I would have to say this is not a European-wide problem. This is a problem you’ll find anywhere you find young boys. From culture to culture, whatever their relative rates of crime, the majority of crime, and the vast majority of violent crime, is committed by young boys and men between 12 and 21. It simply must be hardwired into them, otherwise it wouldn’t be so universal. I don’t mean to say all young men are criminals, but if someone has the criminal impulse that is when they will give into it; hearteningly, this shows positively that time combined with the will to change does bring about a reduction in criminality. The whole history of policing, the judiciary, and prisons has been a history of search for the most effective and humane kind of intervention (overwhelmed, at times, with the search for vengence).

My friend hazel8500 has a blog which has documented many such attacks, and recently she’s reported quite a few. One of the most horrifying is the Australian attack, where:

A 17 year old developmentaly delayed girl was lured by two boys from her home to a park where she was sexually assaulted, burned, urinated on by a group of up to 14 teen age boys. They uploaded the video to youtube where it was viewed 9,000 times online.

Hazel has a screenshot of the boy’s faces. Take a look if you want to see what attackers of this nature look like. I warn you, this is very strong stuff, even though all you can see is their faces. Droogies exist. Link.

Raincoaster,
Oh god, I could not bring myself to look at this link, but the story is horrific enough. It is about time the world needs to realise that this cannot go on. We in the western world are constantly clapping ourselves on the back for our attitude to woman yet it is a farce. How can we say we live in an enlightened society when the cps, the courts and the police tell us by their actions (or lack of action) that crimes, such as this, are acceptable. Filming attacks like this is equivilent to making a snuff movie whether you call it happy slapping or not, so why are those who view it and host it not prosecuted. Violent porn has been banned in the uk so if youtube hosts violent sexual attacks it should be banned in the uk under the new laws.

YouTube’s terms of service prohibit things like this, actually. The video is down.

Hazel makes the very good point that all the attackers are white, while their victim is not; it’s so much easier to hurt someone if you don’t see them as as-human as you, yourself. That in itself is as good an argument for multiculturalism as any I’ve ever heard.

And the cop in charge of the investigation singled out some of the commenters for special distain: apparently many people posted in support of the boys. Those people can expect their IP to be subpoena’d and traced, and probably to be interviewed or at least watched.

Well if the commenters are big and brave enough to support attacks such as these then they should be big and brave enough to be publicly outed. Surely support of crime is incitment to commit crime. Considering the (justified) international outcry that was given when the australian iman made comments about the way women dressed i think it is fair that those commentators are treated the same way.

Hazel makes the very good point that all the attackers are white, while their victim is not; it’s so much easier to hurt someone if you don’t see them as as-human as you, yourself. That in itself is as good an argument for multiculturalism as any I’ve ever heard.

I was very surprised to read recently that race crime figures show an even split between white and non-white victims. I’d previously believed that non-whites comprised a majority of the victims.

How ridiculous, inaccurate and cumbersome the expressions ‘white’ and ‘non-white’, or ‘black and white’ are. Ethnic’s surely rubbish too. Perhaps it’s about time we tried to be more accurate in our descriptions: orangish people with purple pimples? Beige people with white bits? Reddish people? Brownish people? Pinkish people with orange palms? Or maybe we shouldn’t need any reference at all to the hue of a person’s skin? I dunno.

Auntie Flo – you have a good point; children (for that’s what they are) seek to belong and whilst skin colour is an obvious choice to us, it may not be to them. I think culture or mob mentality rules. You know, gang culture (I’m not saying this very well) but they will pick on someone different if that person is fat, red haired, posh when they are not, whatever. All they have to be is different. Just the word ‘multiculturalism’ shows it’s a recipe for disaster.

A pack of boys who pick on a girl seems like a pack of animals to me. Hugging those hoodies will serve no purpose. They need an alpha male with powers of authority to sort them out on every street corner. In my day they used to call them policemen. That was before they spent their time chatting in cars and filling in forms from central government.

Flo, the point I was making was about the possibility of the attack being enabled by the racism of the attackers; isn’t that a relevant point?

Yes, it is, raincoaster. I didn’t intend to come across as critical of your post, I wasn’t. I was just, very clumsily, saying that every time I use the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ etc they just don’t ake much sense to me. I’m the least politically correct person you could meet, so it’s not a pc thing.

I used to paint a few years ago, not well, so I gave it up for sketching. Painting flesh – of whatever colour – requires a whole palette of colours, greens, blues, blacks, greys, whites, oranges and so on. That’s made me hyper aware of what a motley collection of colours, textures, transparencies or opaqueness our skin is and not at all as it seems to be.

raincoaster, will the Democrats win the US mid term elections with a large majority of seats, do you think? I hope so, I want them to give Bush and the Neocons a bloody nose.

Okay, Flo, thanks for clarifying. I’m overmedicated at the moment and that makes me alternately cranky and apathetic. My apologies.

I predict that the Democrats will win the House and Senate by landslides if Kerry can only keep his mouth shut. I bet Hillary’s people have kidnapped him and are holding him in some underground bunker till after November 8.

What bothers me is that this could well put paid to their hopes for the White House as well. It’s not good for the US to have a sweep of all three branches of government: Clinton worked so well in part because he really had to earn votes in the Senate and the House.

I predict that the Democrats will win the House and Senate by landslides if Kerry can only keep his mouth shut.

Excellent. I’m not a Clinton fan, though it’s impossible not to admire Bill Clinton’s powerful oratory and (inadvertent?) BSL. Don’t know enough about Hilary to decide about her. I was not impressed with all the rubbish she tolerated from Bill Clinton, she came across as such a door mat. How about a lesson in US politics, raincoaster?

Right. Downloaded it just fine. Can’t seem to find anything that will play it, and I’ve tried four players now. Looking for a different format; if all else fails, I’ll cut it into pieces and load it on YouTube and watch it there.

Yes, the problem is my players are so old they won’t play it. I just have to find a new one; Quicktime apparently is incompatible with my virus scanner, so I’ll just have to download a new player. Nothing wrong with the format, actually, and I know there has to be a free non-commercial player out there.

I’ll be damned if I’m putting Realplayer on this computer. It damn near killed the last one.

Me neither, although thanks to downloading some software I now have ads popping up all over the place. I shall strip it out and download the file raw and upload it to YouTube. Simpler. I hope it’s not longer than ten minutes though.

I tried to talk to social services today and they no longer talk to people face to face, you have to telephone the next city (well at least it isn’t a call centre in India) and they provide a big building to house the phones you can use to call. You cannot visit the office to speak to someone face to face. This is progress.

I think it’s about time Boris started making the law – he makes himself accesible and even provides a wonderful new forum! Have y’all tried it yet??

raincoaster – I’m in a Labour safe here and as we know, they’re a right bunch of cowboys!

Boris is due to do another broadcast – what issues would you like Webcameron to address? Any ideas? I’d like to see Cameron talking to Dominic Lawson about global warming, over a gin and tonic. Is tax the only solution?

Wibbler’s Revver post loaded completely long before my upload (begun 20 minutes before I clicked on the Revver vid) finished. Embedded Revver players allow the producer more control than YouTube, but still allows pretty much any machine to play it. You dont need to download anything. Why don’t they just do this all the time? An embedded player on webcameron would, if nothing else, keep people on the page longer.

I’d like to know why they don’t just “disappear” the infamous printer. Everyone knows the paperwork involved in reporting a theft is such a nightmare that the bureaucrats concerned are grateful if you skip it, so who would complain?

Alternately, from the archives it would appear that the best way to get rid of it is to leave it in Boris’ front hall when they’re all away on holiday.

Much as we appreciate your comments and contribution on this site I must alert you that your URL link to that video nasty isn’t helpful and as Ed it has to be deleted on your every post at the moment. Any chance you could choose another…?!

I’m as Canadian as they come, although as I’m French-born I have EU status and I did think about applying for the job in Boris’ office. I should have, too; I’d have been good at it. Alas, what might have been!

I’d just like to report that those Cameroonies are all about the metrics: I get three hits a day through Technorati searches for Webcameron, so they’re definitely keeping an eye on the blogs. Wonder what they think of my comments section!

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Wibbler, watch your back. It appears they’re not as interested in spreading their message as they are in retaining control over it. I guess they DO want to limit the audience to people who can afford iPods.

As I said on my blog, it seems bizarre that they would distribute this only through means that cannot be shared, but must be viewed on an individual basis. Allowing a YouTube or other embedded player to be distributed in blogs would spread the message widely, in truly democratic fashion. I guess that’s not what this is about. Ah well.

No, putting something up on the Internet doesn’t negate copyright in any way. But this video was posted specifically to encourage people to talk about webcameron, to spread ideas, to connect to the community and to, hopefully, go viral. By taking down the YouTube they’ve cut their own legs off.

You cannot be controlling AND empowering; they are mutually exclusive.

Really, so even if it was your video which you posted on a free for all site you still have copyright over it? Well, I stand corrected.

I think it should have been allowed on youtube since that is where many younger people will be. Only those who already have an interest in conservative politics will go to the webcameron site, so blocking access so young non-conservatives seems a bit shortsighted. But maybe there is a good reason we do not know about

My posting of it was taken down because webcameron wants to be the only ones to have posted it. If you check the versions that are there, you’ll find they’re all posted by webcameron. Obviously they don’t have an aversion to YouTube so much as they have an aversion to other people. Now I have a black mark against me at YouTube for no reason.

I won’t be re-posting it. And I haven’t contacted the Tory Party, because they haven’t contacted me. But as I said, they will hear about it, just not from me.